[cisco-voip] OT: storing passwords securely in unix scripts

Erick ewellnitzvoip at gmail.com
Fri Mar 2 18:05:04 EST 2012


It depends.

Basic CUCM user/password combos are in a base 64 encoding so you could store that somewhere but I'm not sure how secure that would be.

You could also look into encryption algorithms where your script could decode the stored value.

Problem with either one lies in the fact anyone with access to your code could easily figure out the user/password combination.  That is the downfall of scripts instead of a language which compiles a nebulous .exe

On Mar 2, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Matthew Loraditch <MLoraditch at heliontechnologies.com> wrote:

> I may be thinking about this wrong, but if they aren't in plain text how is your script going to be able to use them? As far as I know you'd have to supply them back to the device in plain text which means they'd need to be some sort of decryptable encryption anyway which just puts you into security by obscurity mode. That may be enough for you but seems redundant to me and an extra step if the file the script is using is properly secured file permission wise.
> 
>  
> 
> Matthew G. Loraditch - CCVP, CCNA, CCDA
> 
> 1965 Greenspring Drive
> Timonium, MD 21093
> 
> voice. 410.252.8830
> fax.  410.252.9284    
> 
> Twitter  |  Facebook  | Website  |  Email Support
> From: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net [cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net] on behalf of Lelio Fulgenzi [lelio at uoguelph.ca]
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 5:09 PM
> To: cisco-voip
> Subject: [cisco-voip] OT: storing passwords securely in unix scripts
> 
> this group is a smart bunch of cookies. anyone have any idea how to securely store passwords on unix/linux so that i can run scripts that require passwords?
> 
> until Cisco builds SSH key pair recognition (or is it there already? ;), this seems like the only option.
> 
> i don't want to be storing passwords in plain text regardless of how secure the directory might be. or at least avoid it if at all possible.
> 
> thoughts?
> 
> ---
> Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.
> Senior Analyst (CCS) * University of Guelph * Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1
> (519) 824-4120 x56354 (519) 767-1060 FAX (ANNU)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Cooking with unix is easy. You just sed it and forget it. 
>                               - LFJ (with apologies to Mr. Popeil)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-voip mailing list
> cisco-voip at puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-voip/attachments/20120302/49bc1cb0/attachment.html>


More information about the cisco-voip mailing list